Three forestry directors say they risk personal bankruptcy after the NZ High Court refused to pause an Environment Court enforcement order requiring that they clean up woody debris from a 940-hectare plantation near Tolaga Bay.
NZ media reports that Gisborne District Council secured the July order against Samnic Forest Management Ltd and its directors—Richard Hayes, Scott Funnell and Gavin Fortune—as well as landowner Woodlett Investments Ltd and its sole director, Duncan Woodhouse. The order compels all parties to remove forestry slash and debris and to submit a risk assessment report and map by October 15.
However, Samnic Forest Management and its directors appealed, arguing that only Woodlett Investments Ltd. should be responsible. They sought a stay of the enforcement order, warning that funding the required reports before their appeal is heard would incur a “huge cost” likely to push them into bankruptcy.
Justice James MacGillivray, deciding on the papers, found the directors’ evidence of impending insolvency to be “slim, to say the least,” before noting that the initial report costs were estimated at NZ$52,800—about NZ$8,800 per party—and that the bulk of the clean-up expenses would not fall due until after the appeal.
“If their appeal is successful, the Samnic parties will be relieved of the burden of contributing to the cost of that future work,” Justice MacGillivray wrote. He added that delaying the risk assessment would unfairly prejudice Woodlett Investments, which “wanted to get on with the clean-up.”
“The remedial work must be carried out regardless of the outcome of the appeals,” Justice MacGillivray found, concluding that “there is no sufficient basis to delay progressing inevitable work simply to avoid the need for Samnic to contribute to the initial cost of doing so.”
